Archives for October 2018

Some folks have taken the time to either scold me (“I’m ashamed to the depths you have sunk!”) or warn me (“Your post seems highly slanted”). I appreciate other opinions. I do not like snide, ad hominem, racist, homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I’ll put up with a little bit of snide, even with a touch of ad hominem. I’ll remove the other kinds and if someone keeps doing it, even when asked not to, I will block them.

That being said I will for at least a few posts be working on rooting out that evil of evils – SOCIALISM, and what the Trump administration is doing in that regard.

So, if you are a Trump supporter, this is for you – buckle up!

First off, did you know that the Federal Government gives millions and billions of dollars to people for no real reason and that there are Senators who otherwise try to stop such practices that become raving GD socialists on this point? You want to root out socialism don’t you? Well, here’s a good place to start. Do you know the Federal government pays millions to grow grain? Yeah, and those Senators in those states, who are otherwise really opposed to socialism become raving lunatics when you suggest that we get rid of the grain subsidies. Why? Well, it supports the state.
The Department of Agriculture loans money to people and governments in small towns at really low rates. They loan money where no one else will. Don’t you think we should turn the $220 Billion dollar portfolio over to Wall Street so they can jack up the prices? Fox News is really big on getting the Federal Government out of people’s lives. They even have a guy that goes on and on about it. Here from pages 118 and 119 of Michael Lewis’ book, “The Fifth Risk” is the exchange between this Fox News fellow and … well you’ll see:

:::
The bank held a ceremony and the guy wound up being interviewed by the local paper. “He’s telling the reporter how proud he is to have done it on his own,..The USDA person goes to introduce herself, and he says, ‘So who are you?’ She says, ‘I’m the USDA person.’ He asks, ‘What are you doing here?’ She says, ‘Well, sir, we supplied the money you are announcing.’
:::

I know. It’s shocking that Fox News or at least the guy who rails against the Federal government constantly on Fox News didn’t know that it was the Federal Government backing his project in rural America.

But don’t worry Trump is fixing all that. Well, okay, not all of it. I mean he’s not trying to educate folks that much of the money that supports rural America comes from the Federal government. Probably, because he doesn’t know. (I’m going out on a limb with that previous statement, but hey, why not?) Without that money going into rural America it would look like (so I am told, but what do I know? And these are people who have spent their lives doing this sort of stuff – so called ‘experts.’) Without that money rural America would look like rural China or sub-Saharan Africa. You’re okay with that aren’t you? Oh, never been there? Well Donnie Jr. and Eric have been (to Africa), shooting big game and now, because of the Trump administration’s bold actions they are allowed to bring those trophies home, go Jimmy John! (He also likes to kill animals that have no defense against a high powered rifle.) Sorry, I got distracted. Within USDA there’s an organization called “Rural Development.” This is the org that doles out the money to keep rural America from looking like sub-Saharan Africa. Rural America is what helped elect Donald Trump. It’s where a lot of Senators come from that don’t like socialism – except when it comes to giving money to grain companies that help fund their re-election campaigns. So Trump is with you! He’s doing all he can to root out socialism. Mainly through ignorance, but so what? Yeah, he got rid of the Rural Development organization. Bye-bye.

I have just started reading Michael Lewis’s book “The Fifth Risk.” It deals with the Federal government, the Trump administration and its transition to taking over the government and running it.

Michael Lewis is a wonderful writer. One of the quotes on the back flap says, “I’d read 800 pages about the stapler if Michael Lewis wrote it.” Lewis wrote “Liar’s Poker,” “Moneyball,” and “The Big Short.” His gift is to make complex subjects understandable and to put a human face on it and drama in it. I mean anyone who can make Mortgage Back Security default swaps not only understandable but interesting and dramatic has got some talent.

This book is no exception and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. In fact, if you vote or are interested in politics or think Trump is doing a great job (especially if you think Trumps is doing a great job!) it should be required reading.

I had only read the first sentence on the inside flap when I got that sense that as Bob Woodward told people after his book “FEAR” came out, “It’s worse than you thought.” This was, of course, an understatement.

At the end of the Prologue to “The Fifth Risk” I will quote what Lewis said Steve Bannon said, which I think sums it up, “Holy fuck, this guy doesn’t know anything. And he doesn’t give a shit.”

As I was putting new dirt and grass seed into the ruts that the kid who cut my lawn created I got to thinking, “What if we used the Dancing with the Stars format for porn performances?”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Fadoogling with the Stars!

“Let’s go right to the judges. Len ‘Big Horse’ Goodgodman, our head judge, what did you think of that?”

“Well, there was no messing about and you got right into it. But for me, I would have liked to see a bit more hip action.”

“Okay, thank-you. Bruno ‘the beast’ what did you think?”

“My DARLING, you were like a hot cat. You little vixen. And you young man, I’d like to see you in my dressing room later. You were relentless. However, I must say, you have to watch your legs. Yes? Full extension. Point the toes. It’s very important.”

“Thank you Bruno. Cary-on, our resident dominatrix, what did you think?”

“Well, okay. First off. Great job. There was a lot of passion, which I like to see. However, you have to stay in control, and I thought you lost it a bit in the middle there. Did you come too quickly? Yes? I thought so, because things kind of wilted. Yes, I know. And this was Missionary, and I’m sorry but I did see a lift. There are no lifts in Missionary. Cow-Girl yes. Missionary no. So I will have to take off a point. However, great job. I hope you’re back next week.”

“Thank-you judges. I’d like to remind our viewers that next week is trios, menage-a-trios. And the week after that Your Most Memorable Moment. That’s all for now. Good night.”

I still haven’t worked out who the “stars” would be. I mean you’d get a washed up politician, but who would want to see a flabby old guy going at it? A young rising Disney star or starlet, last seen wondering what they would do with their juvenile rock band. Someone who appeared on a TV show that went off the air twenty years ago. An athlete in a sport we’ve never heard of, and a business person.

Okay, that’s enough of that. Now onto fun stuff. I’ve just learned that Trump and his family may, may have lied to investors. This can be thought of as a crime. I say “thought of” because hey this is the era of Trump and what were crimes two years ago are now, well, misunderstandings, or lies, or really didn’t happen sort of things.

Last week, if you can remember what was happening then. The “failing!” New York Times ran a story detailing how Donald got millions and millions from his dad and how he lost it all. There was also an article how Jared’s family and Jared hadn’t paid much in taxes for years – all legal!

Now we learn that folks are having the name TRUMP ripped off of their buildings and we learned that cute little Ivanka has been involved in fraud. Well, we knew this before from the SoHo project that she and Donnie Jr. said was in SoHo (It’s not) and that it was almost sold out (it wasn’t). What’s the big deal? Oh, see you get better rates from a bank if it’s almost sold out. Also, if people are looking at a property as an investment they want to know the chances of reselling at a profit. If a building is in high demand the chances of selling it for more money are better. (This is not a difficult concept – btw.) To tell investors and banks that you are almost sold out when you aren’t can be considered fraud. I say “can be considered” because who knows now? I am told it used to be. But then two years ago a lot of things were different. Back then the president used to stand up against civil rights abuses like dismemberment.

Ari Melber ran a brief piece last night, based on an article in ProPublica,that outlined a number of Trump properties that were touted as being almost sold out when it was nowhere near. There are “then” and “now” videos of one Trump or another saying stuff. I like the one of Ivanka talking about the Trump Baja project. She was so proud of it that she bought a unit. (So she said. I doubt it.) Then the project went bankrupt, and suddenly she’s saying they were never the developers of that project. Really? What happened? You claimed to be before? Not only that but she claimed to have sold 40 units one month. People familiar with the project don’t remember her selling one unit, let alone forty.

Then Ari threw up some interesting facts. (To Trump supporters facts are things that are real, That aren’t made up.)

Toronto Trump Tower:

Ivanka in 2009 “Virtually Sold Out”

Reality 24.88% sold

Dominican Republic:

2007 Donald – Sold $365M

Reality by 2009 only $290M

Ft. Lauderdale

4/2006 Donald – “Pretty much sold out”

Reality 62% sold as of 7/2006

It turns out that if a project fails they walk away and say they only licensed their name.

The reality is they are much more involved.

The Baja deal (the one Ivanka sold 40 units – by her claim). Yeah, it’s a 1,000 unit property and 485 of the units sold the people backed out losing $50M. Really? Funny thing. It’s almost all shell corporations so no one can follow who really bought and/or backed out. Maybe they weren’t real deals to begin with and only there to pump up the number of units sold so they could get financing? Ya think?

Back to Kashoggi for a minute. It is being said that they cut off his fingers while he was alive, and his arms, and his legs and finally his head. We can surmise he was dead once the head came off. When the guy in charge at the consulate asked them to take it outside of his office, they told him to shut up if he wanted to stay alive the next time he returned to Saudi Arabia. I have to ask myself, “Who has a team of such brutal sadistic people in their employ?” Why, the smiling crown prince of Saudi Arabia, that’s who. He’s good buds with Jared, and admired by our prez. How could that prince think he could get away with this? Well, the Saudis kill more people every year than ISIS, but that’s in their own country. What about on the world stage? Hey, didn’t Donald Trump call the press the enemy? Didn’t he tell people at a rally that if they roughed up someone he’d pay their legal expenses? Maybe you Donald and Jared would like to don some safety specs and witness the next cut up session? Wouldn’t it be good to see what your chumminess and words have wrought? Why not bring Ivanka along? What dress would she wear to a dismemberment? And what jewelry? So many decisions.

Then there’s the old FBI Building. It’s falling apart. It’s across the street from the Trump Hotel that’s in the old Post Office Building. The plan had been to move the FBI to the suburbs and let the developer have the former FBI building to tear down. All of a sudden once the new administration was in that all changed. Why? According to the GSA lady it was at the request of the FBI. Except there’s no one at the FBI whom they can find that requested it. She also said it didn’t come from the president. But there’s that photo of her sitting in front of the president in the Oval Office, and there are those emails and follow up emails specifically saying that the president ordered that the move be halted and that the building get torn down and rebuilt on the same site. Why would he care? Oh, the developer was planning on putting in a hotel there? Across the street from Donald’s?

And what are the Republicans on the oversight committee doing? Nothing. Really? Yup.

Then there’s the Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke. Man, talk about a jerk. First he rides a horse to work the first day, stopping traffic, etc. Did you see the western garb? Right next to the mounted Park Police with blue hard hat helmets on? Then it turns out this guy has a personal flag that he insists be raised whenever he is in the building at his desk. I wonder if he insisted that it be raised in the Virgin Islands when he was on those vacations the tax payers funded for the private jets that took himthere? Or the other non-government travel? Apparently, his military career got sidelined because he was padding his travel vouchers. Guess what he’s being investigated for? Why padding expense vouchers! Who would have thought? But it’s not one investigation, it’s four. So unfair. Just a guy trying to get a head.

But, not to worry, there’s a solution. Well, there was. They ran into a problem. Remember sleepy eyed Ben Carson? He’s the one over at HUD whose wife insisted on a $31,000 table for his office? The staff told him, “Can’t do that.” So they got rid of that person, brought in a Trump supporter from Queens and she approved it. Ezy-peazy. Well, Ben Carson announced that lady was leaving HUD after her outstanding work approving huge expenditures and going over to Interior where she was going to be taking over as Investigator General. In other words, she’d be in charge of those four investigations. So what if she’s never done an investigation? So what if she has no background in such things? Oh wait, what? There’s an association of these investigators and they take their jobs seriously and they came out against this move and somehow have some power to back it up? Oh well, no problem, Ben Carson was just talking out of his ass. There was never a plan to move the lady. You mean Carson was lying? Yup, you got it. Next.

Next up Manafort, Stone, and the Russian collusion.

Was there any collusion? (I’ll give away the ending – You Bet!)

What do we know so far? (These for Trumpians are facts. Not alternate facts, real facts.)

1. Roger Stone and Paul Manafort go way back. They knew each other as teenagers. They’ve been in business since the early 1980’s.

2. It was Roger Stone that suggested Paul Manafort to Trump to run his campaign. This has been corroborated in public interviews with Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.

3. Roger Stone resigned, was fired, left the Trump campaign. The story on how and why he left keeps changing, but he was no longer officially working on the campaign. He actually was still working for the election of Trump, but they didn’t want it to appear that he was.

4. Roger Stone was in contact with Gucifer 2.0 the Russian GRU (that’s military intelligence) and with Julian Assange looking for and the stolen Hillary Clinton emails, which btw I want to point out had nothing in them of any significance.

So was there collusion with the Russians. You bet your ass there was.

Then there’s – and this is shocking – Trump welching on a pledge to pay. Yeah, he said that if Elizabeth Warren proved she had Indian blood in her he’d pay her one million dollars. She had her DNA done. It showed she had Indian blood and Trump sent out Kelly-Ann to say he wasn’t paying because it was junk science. (Well, isn’t all science junk to these folks?) Then there was more excuses. Reminded me of the cabinet maker in Atlantic City that he stiffed. Reason – the work wasn’t good enough, etc. Yeah. right.

Then there’s Dave Brat. He complained to a bunch of inmates who are serving hard time. “You think you got it rough? I have $5 million in negative ads running against me.” Wow, now that’s tough.

Of course, Dave is running ads against Abigail Spanberger because she taught in high school. Yeah, that’s right. While she was waiting for her CIA clearance to come through she taught at a high school for two weeks. Two of the people that went there became terrorists, or so says his ad. That’s terrible. I’ll bet all the people that were students at Parkland must be psychopathic killers because they went to school with the guy who shot them up?

The ads running against Dave list his accomplishments as a Congressman. Like voting against seniors and their health care, like siding with big drug companies rather than his constituents, like voting for a huge tax cut for the rich, and he thinks this is negative? Hey Dave, you voted for all that stuff. Be proud, puff your chest out say, “Yeah, I did that.” Why are you thinking it’s negative?

Then there are the scores of Republicans who are learning that people like Obamacare and they are now running ads saying they aren’t opposed to things like covering pre-existing conditions. When their record shows just the opposite. Take Scott Walker. That little weasel is running ads saying he’s not opposed to covering pre-existing conditions. This while he has stuff in the hopper opposing covering pre-existing conditions.

In good news, voting is up. In Georgia for the first three days voting is triple what it was in the last mid-term election. But don’t worry, Republicans are hard at work throwing out as many ballots as they can. In Georgia a worker looking at an absentee ballot can throw it out if they don’t think the signature matches the one they have on the rolls. You got a problem with that?

Don’t worry. They are supposed to notify you. Maybe, it’s after the election is over. Maybe, they forget. Who knows – could be anybody.

Oh wait, let’s go back to Kashoggi. Did you see our Secretary of State run away from the mics and the simple question, “Is he dead?”

Trump, being the bold decisive guy he is, said, “It’s bad stuff.” But we have to wait for all the facts, of course. I wonder if the Crown Prince is buying a few extra rooms at a Trump hotel, just to make sure there’s no problem?

I mean, you don’t want to turn away the money do you? You haven’t the whole time you’ve been in office, why start now?

Let’s talk dismemberment. Not of Kashoggi, well okay let’s start there. First they cut off his fingers. Then when the head of the Saudi consulate asked them to take it out of his office he was told to shut up unless he wanted to be killed when he returned to Saudi Arabia. The forensic doctor who had come along with the bone saw suggested that the other folks do as he does when doing such work and put on head phones and listen to some music, which he promptly did. I want to know what kind of music do you listen to while sawing up a body? Is it “Singing in the Rain” as was done in Clockwork Orange? Or would it be classical? So many questions.

Our president is hard at it. He is working closely with the Saudi royal family to come up with a plausible explanation. That’s teamwork.

A recent set of articles has emerged saying that the Saudis offered to run a social media campaign to help get Donald elected. They spoke first to Rick Gates and then directly with Donald. Aside from being illegal there would be nothing wrong with that.

Speaking of illegal Senator Blumenthal has a court case proceeding against Trump on the grounds that he is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Remember when Trump and the Republicans were upset that Hillary had her picture taken with a donor to the Clinton Foundation? Oh boy. Now we’ve got a guy who has a bunch of hotels that were in trouble until the Saudis came in and rented a bunch of rooms. They also bought the 45th floor of Trump Tower, but that was years ago. Why dig up that old stuff? Oh, because it might show a pattern? That maybe the president doesn’t have the country’s best interest at heart and is only looking out for himself?

That seems to run in the family. I mean you can’t blame a person for looking out for themselves can you? Speaking of running in the family, bad real estate deals seem to be part of the family tendencies too. Jared bought a building and paid way too much for it. Not to worry, let’s try to get money from the Chinese, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Germany (well Russian money via Germany, which is the real reason Justice Kennedy stepped down so he wouldn’t have to possibly rule against his son, who while at Deutsche Bank gave Trump a big loan with money that came in from Russia.)

So the story of the Saudis and the social media deal seems a lot like the Russian hacking.

Has anything gone on about that? The Russian hacking? Not much, I mean a Treasury official has been criminally charged with leaking documents and Twitter has said that they were off in their assessment of how much the Russians had done via twitter during the 2016 election.

Originally, Twitter said there were 205 Russian accounts. Now? Over 9,000 Russian accounts linked to the building in Russia that did the hacking and they put out over 9 million tweets pro-Trump and anti-Hillary messages.

Meanwhile the Senate is still going after Fusion GPS, trying to pull in the guy who got the data from Steele on some sort of charge. Yeah, our Senate after finding no reason to look into Russian interference has convened a fourth committee to get Glenn Simpson to say something they can nail him with. The right wing is going crazy because he pleaded the fifth to avoid their tactics. Meanwhile his lawyer confronted the Fox News person who has been covering the story. That lady has been trying to pick at little details as not being correct. The lawyer shut her down with a simple statement that the big picture is that a hostile foreign power interfered in our election, that the evidence is there, and this lady and the Senate want to say there is something incorrect on page 127 of a report.

So what is the White House doing. They are working closely with the Saudi royal family to come up with an explanation. Eric Swalwell of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees has said that as a prosecutor if it takes this long to come up with an explanation then they don’t need to bother because the truth is obvious. (I beg to differ on this point. We’ve only been given three different stories. I mean, come on, give a guy a chance.)

Besides the Saudis have allowed a Turkish investigative team inside their consulate in Istanbul to look around. I don’t know what they found. Well, yeah, there was lots of fresh paint, and there had been seen cleaners coming in days before with lots and lots of boxes of cleaning supplies. So what? Doesn’t prove anything, right?

Once again, journalists familiar with crime families and despots say the behavior of not only the Saudis but the White House resembles the machinations of a crime family more than a government.

So what are our representatives doing about this situation? Well, here’s a check list of what to expect:

– Statements that they are outraged.

– Statements that we must get to the bottom of this, that we must know the facts.

– Statements demonstrating their anguish and despair.

Then it will be time to move along.

Speaking of moving along, you may not know this but there’s an election soon. Republicans have been hard at work, trying wherever they can and by whatever means at their disposal to limit, restrict and impede the vote. Apparently, the group that sends out people to poor and minority neighborhoods to hover over voters in an attempt to intimidate them. Oh sorry, in a patriotic effort to make sure their is nothing untoward going on, has issued a dire warning and they are asking for money to help stop this radical left wing plot. Hundreds and thousands of people have submitted applications to vote and this group wants to stop that. Imagine what might happen? Fortunately, in Texas where this has been happening. The state government has a dozen people entering information by hand. They have 35,000 new applications and they’ve gotten through 10,000. Voting starts Monday. Gosh, they may not get them all done. Oh well, that’s democracy at work!

Speaking of early voting, there’s another plot afoot. Numbers in Georgia are showing three times the number of people are voting early in the first day of early voting compared to the last offyear election in that state. This despite Republican efforts to do all they can to slow it down. People had to wait in line for three hours to vote. You’d think they’d have better things to do. But no. They stayed there and voted. Maybe the officials can spoil the ballots. You gotta dream! The Republicans did call an old folks home and tell the old folks that they couldn’t come by bus to vote. Gotta be creative. Make stuff up. I mean – people are trying to vote!

Oh sorry, I got distracted, back to dismemberment. This time lets talk about our government. Michael Lewis has a new book out that chronicles how the Trump administration has ignored much of the government and how they have put people in charge of agencies that have a vested interest in dismembering that self same agency. Like the guy from Acu-Weather in charge of the Weather Service. He wants to charge for weather information, therefore whatever he can do to keep the Weather Service from doing its job allows his company to do it and charge people. This is kind of like cutting off fingers don’t you think? Then we can bring out the bone saw and really go to work.

941 Days to Go

PS The kid at Teotihucan

(Okay, I’m at the Field Museum in front of a picture of Teotihucan, but I’ll be there soon!)

Somethings have hit me as stunning realizations. Wait, I’ve had some realizations. Yeah, that’s better. They are the kind of things that when I say them out loud or write them out have a dual nature. One is that of course that’s the way it is, and it’s obvious. The other is wait a minute; that shouldn’t be. It’s not right. But there it is.

We have come to a sad place in our social, political, and cultural life. There were a number of things that happened recently that made me realize this.

One was the Spanberger Brat debate I attended Monday night. Dave Brat is appealing to a group of people within the seventh district; Spanberger wants to represent everybody in the district. You might say Spanberger is a throwback to the way politicians used to be. They used to try to represent everybody. Before the age of divisiveness there was that sense that a politician, even one from the party you didn’t favor would look out for you. If you called up their office and asked for help, they would respond. They would do their duty. Now? I haven’t had that sense in a long time.

Another thing has been the blatant and ongoing attempts by the Republican party and people within the party to limit people’s ability to vote that the party believes won’t vote for them. There isn’t the idea of “a free and fair election.” It’s “How can we win at all costs?” In Montana they are going after two counties that vote heavily Democratic. In Georgia the Secretary of State, who is running for Governor, has thrown 676,000 people off the voting roles, was sued and lost when he refused to register 33,000 new voters and is now holding up 56,000 applications for voters. The lawyer who is suing him also sued Harris in Florida. Harris was the county supervisor that not only used a whole array of voter suppression tactics but ordered pre-punched ballots that don’t run through machines properly and hence the “hanging chad” problem that led to Florida going for W.

The Republican party wants to foment chaos and confusion around an election. It occurred to me that this is exactly what the Russians want to do. The Republican Party has more in common with the Russians than they do with the rest of us who want free and fair elections, and who believe everybody should be able to vote and should have equal access to registering and voting.

It has also come to light that the 15 man hit team the Saudis sent to Turkey to kill the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi included the head of the Saudi forensic division and he was carrying a bone saw. I don’t know what a bone saw is but I’d have to say that if you got that kind of equipment in your bag it’s kind of hard to say this wasn’t pre-meditated.

Trump and the Saudis are trying out different excuses. From “We don’t know where he is” to “It was rogue agents.” Nine of the fifteen have been independently identified. One of them is frequently seen with the crown prince. Trump has more in common with despots than he does with prime ministers. He has more in common with the super rich than the average Joe. It’s no wonder he gravitates toward this kind of behavior. Somehow I’m not really saying anything that is new with this, but it is stunning to say it out loud and realize how far away from the principles this country was founded on and the things that I’ve always thought set us apart from others. Not set us apart in a “we are better than you” way, but in a “lead by example” way. That has evaporated.

I travel around the world. I go to places many people don’t. Wherever I go I run into folks who tell me their dream is to come to America, and by that they mean the USA.